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Fancy a trip to an island swarming with 4,000 of the
world’s deadliest snakes that pluck birds out of the sky and
kill them with a venom that can melt human flesh?
That’s what awaits you if you travel to Ilha de Queimada Grande 20 miles
(32 km) off the coast of Sao Paolo, Brazil,
which is home to the golden lancehead viper.
In fact, the island is deemed so dangerous that visiting it was been
banned by the Brazilian government - although not before numerous
people foolishly ventured there in the past.
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Ilha de Queimada Grande, understandably nicknamed ‘Snake Island’, is a
piece of land 4,630 square feet (430 square
metres) in size.
It’s the only place on Earth where Bothrops insularis, also known as the
golden lancehead viper, is known to
inhabit.
That’s probably a good thing, though, as the reptile is regarded as the
world's most venomous viper.
The island is devoid of almost any human visitors, save for a few
scientists granted permission to study the snakes
each year, reports the Smithsonian.
It is also visited on occasion by the Brazilian navy, who tend to the
autonomous lighthouse that was built back in 1909 before
scampering clear.
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And it’s also thought that poachers have been known to visit the island
and claim a golden lancehead viper for their
own, with their price fetching as high as £17,500 ($30,000) on the black
market.
The reason the viper has become so deadly is somewhat of a mystery,
though.
After all, they are not too dissimilar to their brethren on the
mainland.
The predominant theory is that 11,000 years ago sea levels rose and
separated the island from Brazil, which left the
snakes on the island with limited sources of food save for migrating
birds.
The problem was, though, that most venoms take a while to act -
sometimes as much as a few days.
By the time the snake’s venom killed the birds they would have moved
elsewhere, so instead the snakes evolved an
incredibly strong venom that can kill prey almost instantly.
It is five times more potent than other snakes and can even melt human
flesh.
In humans, the bite from a golden lancehead viper carried a seven per
cent chance of death.
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And before the island was deemed off-limits there were several stories
of people succumbing to the deadly predators.
One story tells of a fisherman who lost power in the engines of his
boat.
After drifting to the island he ventured inland, unaware of the terrors
that lay in wait.
When his boat was eventually discovered, he was found dead in a pool of
blood covered in snake bites.
Another story is of the last lighthouse keeper to inhabit the island
with his family.
Rumour has it they ran in terror when snakes crawled in through their
windows; their bodies were later found
scattered across the island.
The name of the island itself tells of its troubled history.
Ilha de Queimada Grande roughly translates as ‘the island of the
slash-and-burn fire’, so-called because of a failed
attempt to develop a banana plantation on it.
However, in the last 15 years the population of snakes on the island as
reduced by as much as 15 per cent, due to a
combination of vegetation removal and disease.
And on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List the
snakes are currently listed as critically
endangered.
With thousands of snakes remaining, however, it’s probably still not the
ideal holiday destination. |